This work, first published in India in 1991, was not anymore available since 1997, date of its last reprint. I decided to take matters in my hands and to bring back this book to life. I felt it deserved it. That required a considerable and fastidious amount of work and having successfully overcome all problems, I am proud to present it to you in its new revised and augmented version. As for all my other books, it has been thoroughly composed with my own typographies (diacritical for transliterations and Devanagari). Text presentation has been thoroughly enhanced, reorganised, a great number of comparative tables added, analytical index developed. This new edition did gain in readability.

I have, of course, kept Indian musical notation but - you must have mastered it since you read the first of my books ! and for those who are not yet acquainted with it, it will only require a few minutes and a bit of practice (with the help of the memo provided) to fully get familiar with the reading of mere 7 notes in Hindi.

Out of the taxonomy of Hindustani repertoire, 74 raga-s have been detailed. They pertain to 5 anga-s "families": Kalyan, Sarang, Bhairav, Gauri and Kanada. Remaining are 17 miscellaneous raga-s, from diverse groups.

Investigations have been mainly based on the study of the contemporary Hindi texts written by the most outstanding Indian scholars, on the analysis of sound recorded raga-s and on the teachings of Dr. K. C. Gangrade (previous Dean & Head of Instrumental Music Dept., Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University).

Detailed references have been given to facilitate consulting of the various scholars and artists.

As there is a great lack of serious literature available in the English language on this subject, the present study can greatly benefit non-Hindi speaking students and scholars of India and abroad who, because of a mere language difficulty, had difficulty acceding to the analytical world of raga. Indians have always rightly thought that music and language were undissociable. That is the reason why they never felt the urge to write their best works in English but wrote them in Hindi. Similarly, Japonese and Korean students of Paris Conservatoire get deeply into French language and European culture in order to play Ravel and Bach. It can't work otherwise without becoming a fraud and a cultural assasination.

As you see, I have not remained idle for the last months : 4 books in 4 months and a fifth, WIP. Moreover, I have started working on Volume II of Comparative Study and if God allows, I should deliver within a year. So, stay tuned !

One last thing before ordering it ! France and Monaco are NOT in United States. Therefore, if you don't live in France, please, do take care of the country your book has to be shipped to when you click on PayPal's button.

Hindustani Gata-s Compilation

Instrumental themes in North Indian classical music

{xtypo_dropcap}T{/xtypo_dropcap}he present work covers 454 gata-s on 164 raga-s. The core of this compilation comes from late Pandit Lal Mani Misra, Dr. K. C. Gangrade, his late guru-s, Ustad Rustam Khan, Pandit Dinkar Rao Patwardhan and Pandit Shankar Rao Telang, whose traditional gata-s of the sitar Gwalior gharana and Amirkhani-s are truly outstanding. Other gata-s proceed from my doctorate of sitar compositions, famous transcribed vocal bandisa-s, from various instrumentalists and from the teachers of the Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University, in my student years (1970-1983).

They have all been written down in Bhatkhandeji's music notation system - svaralipi. But please ! put your mind at rest ! For non Hindi-readers, it will be quite easy, fast and fun to learn the mere twelve symbols needed to fully understand the integrality of the 454 themes (7 musical notes and 5 metric terms "bola" corresponding to the different plectrum or bow movements). This system of notation is broadly explained at the beginning of the book and you will also find a loose sheet to help you ... during your first hour of decoding.

In prevention of lazy moaners query ...

— Why did you use this vernacular notation system instead of writing down the whole thing on staff notation ? or, at least, why not write the music retaining indian notes but in roman letters, i.e. with S = Sa, R = Re; G = Ga, M = Ma etc... (the indian equivalent of C, D, E, F etc...) ?

— It's North Indian classical music and it is only respect to think first of Indians. Moreover, as for any king of music, it requires some effort, especially as the easiness of these 12 musical signs has nothing in common with the intricate learning of western staff notation. On the contrary, could you imagine learning a sonata or a jazz theme using indian musical notation ? Last but not least, through the study of this work, some non-Hindi reading persons will gain access to outstanding XIX-XX century Hindi literature on raga (themes, melodic movements, fast passages etc.). It's only fun learning this notation system - the only one perfectly adapted - to writing North Indian classical music.

The only challenging task will be decoding the skeletal form of the themes to bring them to life - to make them sing on the instrument. Although, in an Indian context, a "good" theme incorporates all the raga lakshana-s, i.e. characteristics, reader will have to recall the raga in memory (revising its rules, themes, listening to its interpretation by first rate vocalists and instrumentalists etc.), getting deeper and deeper into its form and spirit. Then only, the theme will become fully representative of the raga. Following improvisations will remain "within" the framework and raga will be restituted to its status of living melodic being.

Hindustani Raga-s Index

Major bibliographical references (descriptions, compositions, vistara-s) on North Indian Raga-s

{xtypo_dropcap}T{/xtypo_dropcap}his book will prove quite useful to all musicians, scholars and students of music who need to consult main contemporary texts on raga-s descriptions, compositions and vistara-s.

Searching for informations about a given raga in our indian music library is a time consuming affair ! In which work, which volume, at what page will we find the required description of raga darabari, or its themes or its melodic movements ? To further complicate matters, a number of these books don't even have a Table of Contents !

This bibliography will be a tremendous time-saver ! All raga-s, authors and their texts have been alphabetised to instantly give you all references on whatever you need to know on raga-s (descriptions, themes, melodic movements). It thus covers 3 260 references on 704 names of raga-s found in 37 major contemporary texts, in 86 volumes, by 23 authors.

Published in India (Delhi, 1991), this book had been out of print for long. This new edition revised and augmented, incorporates 4 extra texts. The excellent books of Jaisuklal Shah : Saranga Ke Prakara (1986), Bhairava Ke Prakara (1991) and my 2 newly published works : Comparative Study of Hindustani Raga-s (Vol. I) and Hindustani Gata-s Compilation - Instrumental Themes in North Indian Classical Music.

Remark ! If we may rightfully speak of oral transmission regarding the learning of Indian classical music, it is however based on an absolutely essential written theoretical fund which is too often left aside, probably by ignorance. Besides general theoretical works which perpetuated throughout Hindustani raga-s history (musical intervals calculations, evolution of Indian musical scales, of instruments, organology etc.), there exists, in parallel, another theory based on raga-s grammar, its analytical discussion, its themes, its melodic movements, an essential theory for students and performing musicians alike. Although written, that theory is thoroughly oral by nature as it is a discussion on raga-s and practical as it writes-says what is to be sung, played. Indians, rightfully thinking that learning their music was undissociable from their language, wrote their most essential contemporary texts in Hindi. Even if non-Hindi speakers can't make sense of raga-s discussions, I invite all students to get right away the 6 volumes of Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande's Kramika Pustaka Malika which, besides a top analytical discourse on raga-s, give us, for the taking, nearly 5 000 vocal themes and melodic movements on the quasi-totality of Hindustani repertoire ! Then, your personal music library may be enriched with the works of Pandit Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, Ramashraya Jha, S. N. Ratanjankar, Raja Nawab Ali Khan, Omkarnath Thakur, Kumar Gandharva etc. These texts abound with musical treasures to whom knows how to make them exist. In Indian musical tradition, book is the ally, the undissociable complement of orality.

pdf list of the 834 audio and video recordings available on the site (April 4, 2014).

Lists have been alphabetically sorted by rag names & by artists.

You must be a registered user (through login/password) to access the whole collection.

Please, never upload recordings to YouTube or the same. It takes me a lot of time to manage and update the site. Believe me, it's work and if I had wanted my posts to be on YouTube, MySpace etc. I would have done it myself !

The site generates - what's for me - a big volume of mails to deal with: between 10-20 a day. I apologize for not being able to cope with all this correspondance. When I retire (if I ever do), I will get more time to answer all your queries and your kind words of encouragements. In the mean time, I beg you to bear this inconvenience. I do have so little time to devote to the site that I prioritize the feeding of the beast with new audio and video archives. I know that's what you want most.